


telephone (hate being close, scared of being alone)

by Katbelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Coda, Dean is a cruel asshole, Gen, Post-Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Sam and Cas suffer because of it, Sam just lost all of his friends and isn't doing well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 03:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21172979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/pseuds/Katbelle
Summary: Dean is still looking at the staircase when Sam emerges from his room.





	telephone (hate being close, scared of being alone)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a coda to yesterday's episode. Written right after the ep aired when I was full of rage and broken up over Cas, and sad when I realised that Dean just cost Sam his last friend.
> 
> The title comes from a quote by Chuck Palahniuk: "People used what they called a telephone because they hated being close together and they were scared of being alone."

**telephone (hate being close, scared of being alone)**

Time loses meaning after that. Dean sits there, perched on the edge of the table, with his eyes glued to the staircase, but not truly seeing it. Instead of the railing he sees Cas' face as it was moments before – minutes before, maybe hours at this point – the shock of Dean's words briefly overcoming the hurt that's been the angel's companion for days now. And then the bitter smile. And worst of it, the resignation and the defeated and tired _acceptance_ as he turned around to--

To do what, exactly?

Leave? Leave and go _where_? It's not like Heaven was a safe place for him. It's not like Heaven was even _functional_. What was that idiot going to do? There is nowhere for him to go. He's just going to get himself hurt. Or killed, again.

_Time to move on_. Dean tears his eyes away from the staircase landing and trails the railing up and up, to the bunker door which a part of him expects to see swinging open any minute now. Cas can't just _leave_. He just--he just can't. _Time to move on_. Move on _where_?

"Where's Cas?" Sam's soft voice, barely more than a broken whisper, seems to echo in the emptiness of the bunker.

Dean turns and looks at him, really looks at him, taking in the disheveled hair and the red-rimmed eyes and the pale face and tight lips, and realises how little he knows about the depth of the relationship Sam has with Rowena. 

Had. Rowena is gone. And Ketch is gone too, funny, that, just two days ago he was there, trying to impress Rowena like some lovesick horny moron. And that demon is gone, fuck him anyway, and Jack is gone, and Mum is gone.

"Why?" Dean asks instead of answering. He doesn't want to answer. The sole thought makes him sick. He feels sick all of a sudden, sick and short for breath, and he's dizzy and there's bile at the back of his throat, and some distant part of him recognises all of that as guilt.

"I wanted to thank him," Sam says, still soft and quiet. Dean is not sure what Sam sees on _his_ face, but whatever it is cannot be good as it prompts Sam to add, "You forced him to go to Hell with no real plan. He tried his best. And maybe it didn't work, but it still deserves a thank you."

"It didn't work because of him." Somehow that seems important to say, but tastes bitter in Dean's mouth. "He killed Belphegor."

"I know. He said so when we--" Sam pauses and takes a shuddering breath. He closes his eyes before continuing, "When we were leaving the crypt. Said that Belphegor was trying to suck all the souls into himself."

"But at least they'd be gone from Earth. We would have dealt with Belphegor later."

Sam frowns. He opens his eyes and his frown deepens, and his sad eyes focus on Dean and his gaze turns suspicious. "He did the right thing, Dean," Sam says, very, very slowly, as if unsure of Dean's understanding. "We couldn't put out one fire by starting another one."

"Rowena would have been alive," Dean feels compelled to point out.

"And you would have been pissed that he let some demon get all that soul power." Dean says nothing at that. Sam's not wrong. "Sometimes it really is a no-win scenario."

"Except this one wasn't," Dean insists. He glances at the bunker door. Still closed. He'll be back. He'll realise that he has nowhere to go and he'll be back. And then maybe--maybe Dean will listen then. "He just screwed up."

"Screwed--" Sam sucks in a breath and when he speaks, his voice is tightly controlled again, but this time he's not keeping away the grief. "Dean. Dean, where's Cas?"

"He left." Cas is gone too, just like everyone, and he wants to move on, but there's nowhere for him to move on _to_, so what does he think he's doing-- "He just--left."

"Left," Sam repeats. His tone is sharper than it was a minute ago. "Just like that."

"We talked about it." That's one way of putting it.

"What did he say?" That Dean doesn't trust him, that Dean doesn't care, that Dean blames him, that he's _moving on_... When Dean doesn't grace that with an answer, Sam presses, "Dean. Dean, what did you say to him?"

_Nothing_, Dean wants to tell Sam. He hadn't really said anything to Cas. "That it's his fault," is what falls from his lips instead, unbidden and uninvited, but not untrue, and when he puts it like _this_, it's harsh, it's cruel, and he wants to take it back even more now than the moment he'd actually said it. "Always."

The heartbreak on Sam's face isn't any easier to face than the one on Castiel's. Dean averts his gaze and feels shame. He shouldn't have said that.

But he had, it was out and there was no way to take it back.

"Jesus, Dean," Sam says, and a little bit of frantic concern livens up his flat voice. He scrambles for his phone. "How could you--_Fuck_, Dean, you fucked up--"

"I didn't mean--" _To say it_, is the other part of the sentence that dies in Dean's throat as Sam finally gets his phone out and dials Cas. He's not sure if he meant the words, even if he didn't mean to say them out loud. Or maybe he did mean, both. It's hard to know what he wants. It's hard to know if _he_ does anything.

"You're such an asshole, Dean, I swear--"

"He'll be back," Dean says. It doesn't sound convincing even to his own ears. "When he picks up just tell him to--"

A muffled ringing noise interrupts him mid-sentence. Dean looks to Sam and Sam glances back, lowering his phone but not disconnecting the call. The ringing continues, from the library, and when Sam goes to check it out, Dean can't bring himself to leave the table. He's almost afraid of what Sam might find.

The ringing stops. "It's Cas' phone," Sam informs him from the library. 

An invisible hand grips Dean's throat. "Must have forgotten it."

"No. He left it here. He--"

A thud and a crack. Dean turns around at that. Cas' phone lies in pieces on the floor and Sam is shaking. His naked grief only fuels his anger and for a moment, Dean feels fear.

"You drove him away," Sam says, his grip on his own phone white-knuckled. "Cas has stuck by us through so much, taken so much _shit_, and you finally managed to drive him away. Are you happy now?"

"Cas will be back."

"We've lost everyone else, man. Mum, Jack, Ketch, Rowe--" Sam has to stop and compose himself. "Cas was all that we had. And now he's gone too. And it's _your_ fault."

"Cas will be back," Dean repeats. Cas has to. He always comes back. He always comes back to Dean.

Sam glances at the remains of Cas' phone on the floor, the only real way they had of keeping in touch. "Will he?" he asks and this time can't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Because this looks like he's done with us."

_Time to move on_.

Move on _from you_.


End file.
